Hey Congress, Yo.
If you want to restore my confidence in you and get reelected, do not award Wall Street $700 billion for their gross negligence and mismanagement of our economy. If they deserve this infusion of money then why shouldn't homeowners and taxpayers be considered for it? Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program, at Occidental College, blogs the following on HuffPost:
Helping homeowners directly is a lot cheaper, more direct, and more cost-effective than handing banks $700 billion. It focuses on consumers, not lenders. It stimulates demand, but requires banks to provide home loans that consumers can afford. It doesn't reward banks and investors for their greed and mismanagement, but reduces the toxic mortgages that are now turning Wall Street banks into a house of cards. (Congress could limit help to homeowners with incomes under, say, $200,000.)
So what's the problem here?
Obama says we should have a trickle up economy. Here's our chance. The fact that Congress won't do this testifies to their corruption and greed. We should vote out every one of them who votes for this bailout, unless it's changed to apportion a chunk to every taxpayer.
They'll say that Wall Street will pay it back with interest. But look at who we're giving it to. These failed greed addicted "educated" gamblers. Will they really make good with this cash? With the so called salary caps, I can't believe they won't find a way to filter this cash into their pockets. They'll control it. It's easy to skim off of $700 billion. A million here and there will never be missed.
I've heard the argument that we shouldn't reward people who don't pay their mortgage bills. What kind of perverted logic is that? This mortgage crisis is not due to some epidemic of negligent bill payers. It's due to banks floating loans to people who can't afford them and then selling these loans to secondary markets where the payments are raised to where people can no longer afford them; and all of this done behind the borrowers' backs and without their approval. If someone can't pay their bills does that automatically mean they fore go their rights to a fair contract, or at least the terms of the contract of their original agreement?
I have personally had this happen to me on numerous loans leading to levies on my assets. Surprise. I have no assets. Guess why? If my creditors want to get their hands on my assets, they better think about helping me get some.
I'd like to see this rescue plan apply to defaulted student loan holders as well. Why not? This economy is hurting everyone. We're a democracy. When our countrymen are in need we rally to rescue them. So let's rescue the people who need it the most.
So some of us were able to keep up their payments. They have great credit in reward. It's no reason to withhold assistance from those who need it. If someone is drowning in a lake because they can't swim, would you let them drown, just because you can swim? For what ever reason they got there, help them out. It will only benefit all of us in the end.
This Wall Street crisis is the fault of the lenders, not the borrowers. Therefore the borrowers should be the ones given the money to correct the problem, not the banks who caused it. You are rewarding the bad guys and punishing the good guys. In doing so you are turning this county into a social corporate welfare state, very like a dual class communism of elite rich and working class peasants. Is that what you want this country to look like? 20th Century Communist Russia? At least giving out funds equally to all people who need it the most is truly democratic.
You give billions to bailout Wall Street banks, to foreign governments, to fight a failed useless war that has backfired and positioned us as even more of a terrorist target than ever. You can spend billions on all that; but you can't even spend a few bucks on your own people. People are dying every day from lack of health care, lack of work, lack of having a home. You're like a species that eats it own young.
Everyone admits that a tough recession is ahead regardless. Without this bailout rescue, how bad can it really be?
Some businesses that live on credit might fail. But they'll probably fail anyway. Many already have. This is not going to help them. It's just borrows them time at everyone's great expense.
This is the information age. It's not like it takes real estate and machinery to run every business. You can run a business from a laptop at Starbucks. If ever there was an age where people had the tools and technology available to bounce back from something like this, it's right now. Let Wall Street fall. The economy will take care of itself if you let it.
I have about a hundred thousand dollars of debt I cannot get a handle on. A lot of people are in my boat. Give us a hand to give you a hand and to give our economy a hand. Stop feeding the rich with their multi-million dollar severances and multi-million dollar annual salaries. You are rewarding them with their cut of this money right off the top. It's time for our cut. They had their shot. They blew it. We have had it with their crap. Those of us true patriots believe in democracy, not oligarchy, not elitist communism, not corporate social welfare.
I can feel a tea party coming on, Boston style. You might want to think it over at your next white tie dinner.